Regents will study UNLV-UNR spending disparity

Sunday, Jan. 31, 1999 | 9:22 a.m.

The newly elected trustee said the disparity treats Southern Nevadans like "second-class" citizens.

"We might as well put it all on the table and stop hiding behind the facade that this problem doesn't exist," Sisolak said Friday. "Let's make some adjustments to fund growth in Southern Nevada. Let's budget our resources based on equity, growth and need."

Per-student spending at the University of Nevada, Reno tops $10,000, compared with $7,000 at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. UNR's annual enrollment growth is about 2 percent, compared with UNLV's 6 percent.

Sisolak said the disparities should be straightened out during the upcoming legislative session, an effort that first would require the Board of Regents to resubmit its higher education budget requests. Those requests already have been accepted and readjusted by Gov. Kenny Guinn and forwarded to the Legislature, which convenes Monday.

At a Las Vegas meeting Feb. 25 and 26, the 11-member Board of Regents will consider making changes in the system's requests for money to operate programs and build new buildings. If changes favoring UNLV and the Community College of Southern Nevada were made, university system Chancellor Richard Jarvis would be in the position of lobbying the 1999 Legislature on the new priorities.

Four of seven Southern Nevada regents - Sisolak, Mark Alden, Tom Kirkpatrick and Tom Wiesner - asked that the budget matters be brought before the board for a vote.

"These disparities are widening every day," Alden said. "If we wait two more years it will just be worse."

The four also are asking that the University and Community College System of Nevada reconsider its plans to open a joint campus in Northern Nevada. Sisolak said the Redfield campus could cost the university system $100 million over the next 20 years. That money, he said, would be better spent building campuses in Henderson or northwest Las Vegas.

UNR President Joe Crowley, arguing the funding disparities are explained by fundamental differences between the state's two universities, called the movement by Southern Nevada regents a mistake that could be costly for all state campuses.

"There is no money in Carson City," Crowley said. "If we are divided before the Legislature, we might as well pack our bags and go home. It isn't any secret that if a group is divided, it isn't going to get its share."

Crowley said differences exist between budgets at UNR and UNLV mainly because the Reno campus has larger percentages of graduate students and longtime, fully tenured professors. UNR graduates four times as many doctoral students as UNLV, and its engineering and mining programs are expensive to operate. Some of the difference is explained by Reno's older buildings and colder climate, he added.

But the biggest part of the problem, Sisolak and Alden argued, is that higher education formulas have not been readjusted since 1986 despite the strains of growth felt at UNLV and the Community College of Southern Nevada.

In those 13 years, the two campuses have doubled the number of students they teach and provide with support services. Both Southern Nevada campuses have opened dozens of new buildings and added new academic programs.